What Happens to Branches and Timber After Tree Work?

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A tree that looked a manageable size standing up produces a startling amount of material lying down. Knowing where it goes, and what you are entitled to keep, is worth five minutes before the work rather than a conversation in the driveway afterwards.

The Three Things a Tree Turns Into

Brash

The small stuff — twigs, leaves, thin branches. It is fed through a chipper on site as the work goes, which is why a chipper running is the background noise of most tree jobs. Chipping reduces the volume dramatically; without it, a single tree would be several loads of nothing but branches.

Cordwood

The trunk and the larger limbs, cut into manageable lengths. This is the heavy material and it does not compress, so it is what fills a truck.

The stump

Stays in the ground unless grinding has been arranged. Grindings are a separate product again: a large volume of loose wood and soil that can be left in the hole, spread, or taken away.

What You Can Keep

• Logs for burning. Very common, and easy — say what length you want and where you want them stacked. One caveat worth knowing: fresh timber is wet. It needs a year or two split and stacked under cover before it burns properly, and burning it green is bad for your flue and for everyone's air
• Woodchip for paths and borders. Fine as a mulch and free. Do not dig it into soil — fresh chip on the surface is a mulch, fresh chip dug in locks up nitrogen while it breaks down
• A log pile for wildlife. A stack of cordwood in a shaded corner is one of the more useful things in a garden and costs nothing to leave
• Timber worth milling. Occasionally a straight clean butt of oak, walnut or yew is worth more as boards than as firewood. Rare, but worth mentioning if the tree is a good one

Where the Rest Goes

Chip goes for biomass fuel, landscape mulch, or composting. Cordwood goes for firewood or, where it is unsuitable, for processing. Nothing useful is landfilled, and nothing is burned on site — garden bonfires of tree waste are antisocial and, depending on what and when, can amount to a statutory nuisance.

The Bit That Is Legally Yours

The reasonable step is simply to ask. Any legitimate operator will give you their waste carrier registration number without hesitating, and it can be checked on the Environment Agency's public register.

If You Want It All Left

Perfectly possible, and it reduces the cost, since removal is a real part of the price. Be realistic about volume though — people consistently underestimate how much material comes out of a tree, and a garden with a mountain of brash in it that nobody ever deals with is a worse outcome than paying to have it gone.

A middle course works well: keep the logs, let the brash be chipped and taken away. You get the useful part and none of the volume.

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Ask Us About Your Own Garden

Tell us at quotation stage if you want logs, chip, or a habitat pile left. It costs nothing to arrange in advance and is awkward to sort out once the truck is loaded.